Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to the Everett City Council's Parks and Built Environment Council Committee.

Monthly meeting for this committee of the subcommittee of the Everett City Council.

This public is welcome to our meetings to attend in person or remotely.

We don't take public comment at these committee meetings, but we do take it at every regular city council meeting, the next one of which will be 6 30 p.m.

tonight.

For our agenda this afternoon, oh, I'm joined by Council members Luis Barbano and Paula Ryan, our regular chair of this meeting.

And our agenda this evening, two main items.

First, a Vision Zero update, and then an update on the multifamily tax exemption ordinance.

So let's start first with uh Corey Hurt and uh update on Vision Zero efforts.

Great.

Thank you, Council Members Arlingo and uh for the record, Corey Hertz, City Traffic Engineer.

I want to say thank you for inviting me to come uh provide an update on our Vision Zero effort.

So Vision Zero effort as a plan is wrapping up at the end of the month when the funding runs out.

It started back in September of 2024, funded 80% by a federal Safe Streets for All grant as a sub-recipient of the Puget Sound Regional Council grant.

After a good deal of public outreach, the steering team made up of staff and a transportation advisory committee member and a data driven safety analysis.

The final report and technical memoranda were formalized in December of 2025.

It included a detailed crash analysis, a policy for setting posted speeds, and a toolbox for safety strategies and countermeasures.

It also produced a list of projects that have been added to the six-year transportation improvement plan that can be used to apply for funding, future funding from outside sources.

Without a vision zero process, the city would have been overlooked for further federal funding that we've received.

Here's the five big commitments that came out of stuff out of the study.

Ideas that will produce long lasting results to improve transportation safety in our community.

They include pedestrians and active transportation users as our top priority going forward.

It also engages with the community on safety, strengthens our partnerships between engineering and enforcement to solve the real safety issues our drivers and pedestrians face every day.

Also, we're committing to build redundant transportation systems that protect our most vulnerable users, building infrastructure that puts people first, but at the same time, not snarling the city with traffic congestion.

The zero deaths vision acknowledges that even one death on our transportation system is unacceptable and focuses on safe mobility for all road users.

The wheel you see to the right is a graphical representation of the safe system's approach.

Reaching zero death requires an implementation plan, which is founded on the principles that humans make mistakes and that human bodies have limited ability to tolerate crash impacts.

In a safe system, those mistakes should never lead to death.

Applying the safe systems approach involves anticipating human mistakes by designing and managing road infrastructure to keep the risk of mistakes low.

And when a mistake leads to a crash, the impact to the human body doesn't result in a fatality or serious injury.

There are six principles that form the basis of a safe system approach.

Deaths and serious injuries are unacceptable, that humans make mistakes, that humans are vulnerable, responsibility is shared, that safety is proactive, and redundancy is crucial.

During the initial work on Vision Zero Everett, it was recognized that speed plays a role in serious and fatal crashes.

The first federal grant application during our vision zero effort was in 2024 and keys in on one of the five principles of the safe systems approach, safer speeds.

The plan was funded by the Safe Streets for All program and is going to evaluate every arterial in Everett in logical segments.

That's 79 arterials and about 200 logical segments where the speed change might be considered.

It'll evaluate a 20 mile per hour residential speed limit in one of three ways.

We'll look at maintaining the status quo, which is a 25 mile an hour residential speed limit.

The possibility of a 20 mile per hour speed limit on bike boulevards where cars and bikes and pedestrians mix, or maybe a citywide 20 mile per hour statutory speed limit on residential streets.

We'll also consider a 20 mile per hour downtown speed limit where pedestrian crossings are the highest in the city.

One comprehensive resolution is expected to come before council early next year.

Data will be collected and land use will be part of the process following our new speed limit setting policy.

The public will be asked for recommendations through simple online mapping tool and public outreach sessions.

The transportation advisory committee will hold workshops to discuss the recommendations that come out of the study.

And finally, a team from staff that'll be the city traffic engineer, the city engineer, and police will screen the results to make sure the speed limits are both practical and enforceable.

The second planning grant, uh, I think council's already been briefed on, and we we've secured so far is for an active transportation plan.

It's an update to the bicycle master plan and is funded again by this federal safe streets for all program.

The plan will identify gaps in pedestrian and bicycle networks and propose solutions to guide our future investments.

It'll prioritize safety focused projects that improve walkability and rideability in Everett.

It will include outreach to the community from bicycle clubs and advocates, pedestrian advocates for people with mobility disability, and everyday people who just push a stroller around or go shopping all over Everett.

This project should take about a year and will start in earnest later this summer with consultant selection.

We're still awaiting an approved agreement with the FHWA that we'll bring before council for mayor's approval for mayor's signature.

The third secured grant that came out of Vision Zero Everett came from an emphasis on Evergreen Way, which has the highest pedestrian crash history of any street in Everett.

With total grants approaching 1.2 million, the planning effort builds on the Evergreen Way revitalization plan from decades ago with uh safe streets for all grant funding and Sandy Williams Connecting Communities grants from the state.

The plan will reimagine Evergreen Way as a high capacity transit corridor where pedestrians feel safer to walk and cross.

Expect to see complete streets principles like more enhanced and safer crossings, vegetated buffers and wider sidewalks, bike facilities adjacent to those sidewalks and off the street to create a more friendly environment for people to walk, roll, scoot, and skate their way around from businesses and transit.

It'll also include uh some uh some type of median in the middle that provides a pedestrian refuge.

The planning department will lead this effort with support from public works and the active transportation component and traffic engineering on the operational analysis.

To understand the possible timeline, it's gonna take a while to be shovel ready.